The present invention relates to food preparation ovens and in particular to a multi-zone oven providing proximate-air delivery of heated air directly through the shelves.
Convection ovens can improve cooking speed by dispersing stagnant air that can provide an insulating blanket around food in an oven. Such ovens normally provide a blower blowing heated air through an opening in the wall of the cooking cavity, the opening positioned in a way to increase air turbulence so as to provide even cooking.
One drawback to convection ovens is that different volumes of food as well as different food loading arrangements can radically change the airflow pattern and hence the cooking process. This can require a chef to develop extensive experience in how to load and operate the oven when different types of food items, different volumes of food of different placement of food within the cook cavity are used.
Higher cooking speeds and more consistent cooking can often be obtained by reducing the length of the path between the heated air and the food, for example, by delivering the heat through an array of horizontally dispersed openings positioned directly above and/or below the food, thereby increasing the surface area of food that is directly contacted by the delivered heat. This proximate-air delivery can improve the uniformity of cooking in a variety of different food loading patterns and for different types of food. In this regard, the short air delivery distance provides more predictable tractable airflow patterns. Common ovens of this type provide a set of upward and downward facing airstream openings in opposition on upper and lower walls of the oven cavity.
It would be desirable to provide ovens using this proximate-air delivery that could simultaneously cook a variety of different foods at different temperatures. Two-cavity proximate-air ovens are relatively simple to construct by simply stacking two single cavity ovens one on top of the other. Unfortunately, additional cavities can unduly increase the height of the oven or reduce the cooking volume because of the substantial space between cavities necessary for insulation between the cavities and for the plenums necessary for the air delivery.